In Art of Ryder Cup, Pairings Are the Master Stroke

Tom Watson can only hope his pairings strategy lasts longer this week than the one he tried the first time he was United States Ryder Cup captain.

Opening day began in a fog at The Belfry in 1993, delaying the first shots by two and a half hours, and Watson’s prime pairing of Paul Azinger and Payne Stewart never seemed to shake off the murkiness. A 7-and-5 loss to Ian Woosnam and Bernhard Langer prompted a quick breakup.

“They got off to a terrible start,” Watson recalled. “I was going to go with them in the afternoon as the same pairing, but I ended up splitting them up.”

Stewart won his three remaining matches, two of them paired with Raymond Floyd; Azinger contributed two halves as the Americans prevailed, 15-13.

“Those are the types of decisions that they pay me big bucks for,” Watson quipped.

For all the planning that goes into being a Ryder Cup captain, his success or failure essentially boils down to one skill: finding the right two-man combinations to win points from opponents.

Sometimes the skipper comes up with a “Spanish Armada,” as Seve Ballesteros and José María Olazábal were known in a four-Cup partnership that Tony Jacklin created and Bernard Gallacher wisely preserved. Sometimes the chemistry just doesn’t take, as Hal Sutton found out with his dream pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in 2004. The duo was disbanded after two Friday losses.

“The pairings are the captain’s toughest decision of the week,” said Graeme McDowell, set to play in his fourth Ryder Cup this week. “It’s great when you can get two people who fit together well, who enjoy playing with each other and feed off each other.”

There’s no science to it, though perhaps Azinger came as close as possible with his “pods” system that set the stage for the American victory in 2008. Mostly, captains consider it an art form, for some Monet-like, for others more akin to Jackson Pollock.

At times, though, all it takes is one shot to smear the work.

In Friday foursomes at the last Cup, in 2012, Jim Furyk and Brandt Snedeker stood even with McDowell and Rory McIlroy as they headed to the 18th tee. Snedeker then flared his drive 40 yards right of the fairway.

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The team captain Tom Watson, center, with the victorious United States Ryder Cup team at the Belfry in England in 1993. Watson has returned as the U.S. captain.CreditChris Cole/Getty Images

The alternating order had been set up so that Furyk could use his stellar iron game at No.18 to set up Snedeker, perhaps the best American putter. But the wayward drive flipped the roles, as Furyk had to hack back to the fairway and Snedeker hit the approach.

Their bogey gave the match to Europe — a costly early point that helped keep the Americans from putting Europe away.

“That’s what makes it so challenging as a captain,” Watson said, “because I can’t do a darned thing about it once those players are on the golf course.”

Sometimes what works one year fizzles out the next. Woods and Steve Stricker were 6-2 as a tandem before Medinah last time around, a big factor in Davis Love 3rd taking Stricker with a wild-card pick. They lost all three matches in which they were paired.

“You have to play by instinct and feel and what you see on the course,” said Billy Casper, who guided the Americans to victory in 1979 as a last-minute call paid huge dividends.

Two days before the matches started, Watson flew home when his wife went into labor with their first child. Casper had planned to lean heavily on a pairing of Watson with Lanny Wadkins.

“Now I was faced with who I was going to pair Lanny with,” Casper recalled. “For some reason, I came up with Larry Nelson.”

Casper put them together in the final practice round, where they combined to shoot 59. The duo then went 4-0 as a tandem, knocking off Ballesteros and Antonio Garrido three times, and Nelson beat Ballesteros in singles.

But Casper acknowledged that his idea to pair Lee Trevino and Fuzzy Zoeller backfired. “I thought they could talk themselves into winning a match,” Casper said, “but they relaxed the other players [Mark James and Ken Brown] so much that they got beat 3 and 2. No way were they playing together again.”

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Keegan Bradley, left, and Phil Mickelson after Bradley made a crucial putt on the second day of the 2012 Ryder Cup in Medinah, Illinois.CreditTannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency

Dave Stockton, the winning American captain in 1991’s infamous “War by the Shore,” recalled seeing his entire game plan disrupted when Steve Pate was hurt in a car accident on the way to the Wednesday night gala.

“I knew exactly what I was doing until we had the limo wreck,” Stockton said. “All of a sudden, I couldn’t have Pate play with [Corey] Pavin. Unfortunately, Pavin has a unique game, such a bulldog. He and Pate would have been brilliant together.”

“It really messed with my mind because I hadn’t had anybody else practice with Pavin,” he added. “It changed a lot of pairings, and then I get into doing stuff I wasn’t expecting to do. It made things a lot harder.”

No European captain would dare mess with Ballesteros and Olazábal, who debuted as a pair in 1987 at Muirfield Village.

“[Seve] made clear to Tony Jacklin that he wanted to play with me,” Olazábal recalled. “I was shaking like a leaf. You know, it was huge crowds, very loud.” He added, “So I kept my head down, and he approached me as we were walking onto the first tee. He looked at me and said, ‘José María, you play your game, I’ll take care of the rest.’ And he did.”

In later years, Olazábal would carry an erratic Ballesteros to victories.

“The Spaniards play together, the Swedes play together, the Englishmen play together,” Azinger said, mulling why Europe produces better pairings. “They’re more invested in each other. They’re more engaged in the process.”

That’s what led him to the “pods” system, dividing a team of 12 decided underdogs in 2008 into three platoons of four men each. Based on a concept used by Navy SEALs and other special operations forces, the idea is to create a small unit fully committed to each other’s success. Azinger let the groups decide their own pairings, and who would play best-ball or alternate-shot.

“They were able to really get comfortable with each other,” he said. “And each man in the four-man group wanted each other to succeed.”

They still have to play the shots, though. And that’s where a captain has no choice but to relinquish control.

“When all is said and done,” Watson said, “you’re making the best possible decision at the time you’re making the decision to put two people together. And that’s the art form.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: In Art of the Ryder Cup, Pairings Are the Masterstroke. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe